Detroit (city)

"Well, at least Mumbai is safer."

24

Hated

by 9 Jurors

Detroit is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan, and is the seat of Wayne County, the most populous county in the state and the largest city on the United States-Canada border. It is a primary business, cultural, financial and transportation center in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people, and serves as a major port on the Detroit River connecting the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It was founded on July 24, 1701, by the French explorer and adventurer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac.

Known as the world's traditional automotive center, "Detroit" is a metonym for the American automobile industry and an important source of popular music legacies celebrated by the city's two familiar nicknames, the Motor City and Motown. Other nicknames arose in the 20th century, including City of Champions beginning in the 1930s for its successes in individual and team sport, The D, Hockeytown (a trademark owned by the city's NHL club, the Red Wings), Rock City (after the Kiss song "Detroit Rock City"), and The 313 (its telephone area code). Detroit's auto industry was an important element of the American "Arsenal of Democracy" supporting the Allied powers during World War II.

The state governor declared a financial emergency in March 2013, appointing an emergency manager. On July 18, 2013, Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history. It was declared bankrupt by U.S. judge Stephen Rhodes on December 3, who cited its $18.5 billion debt and declared that negotiations with its thousands of creditors were unfeasible. [1] Glory days
In 1909, Wayne County built the first mile of concrete highway in the world on Woodward Avenue between Six and Seven Mile roads. In 1919, America's first 4-way three color traffic light was installed on the corner of Woodward and Michigan Avenues in Detroit 1. In 1930 the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was completed making it the first traffic tunnel between two nations. By 1942, the world’s first urban freeway opened to the public, the Davison Freeway.

In August 20, 1920, 8MK, later renamed WWJ, is believed to be the first station to broadcast regular news reports that aired. Financed by The Detroit News, 8MK was initially licensed to Michael DeLisle Lyons. He assembled the station in the Detroit News Building. As was common practice in the early days of radio, the Scripps family asked Lyons to register the station in his name in case this rather new technology was only a fad. [1]

Detroit is also home to Techno music and Motown. Back in 1960, the city of Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the United States. [2] Urban decay
Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent. In 1950, there were about 296,000 manufacturing jobs in Detroit. Today, there are less than 27,000. Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.

Detroit is a dark city, with about 40% of its streetlights not functioning. The city currently has just 9,700 workers, yet has 21,000 retirees drawing benefits. Unemployment has tripled since 2000. As of June 2012, it's 18.3%, which is more than double the national average. [1]

The number of employed residents has dropped more than 53% since 1970. About one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict. Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008. The per capita tax burden on Detroiters is the highest in Michigan, despite relatively low levels of income for city residents. The total assessed value of property in Detroit declined by 77% over the past 50 years in inflation-adjusted dollars. The city has unfunded pension liabilities of $3.5 billion. Its unfunded health care liabilities are $5.7 billion. [2]

An estimated 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate. Less than half of the residents of Detroit over the age of 16 are working. 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty. [3]

In 2012, Detroit had the highest violent crime rate of any U.S. city with a population over 200,000, with the overall crime rate being five times the national average and the murder rate being 11 times higher than it is in New York City. The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade. Its citizens wait on average more than 58 minutes for the police to respond to their calls, compared to a national average of 11 minutes. Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day. Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit. Only about a third of the ambulances are running. [4]

Slide me!

Detroit is arguably worse than Mumbai if you take into consideration the crime rate and gun ownership. The chance of you dying walking in downtime Detroit at midnight is signficantly higher than in Mumbai. Basically, if you're stupid enough to wander the streets at night, you must have a deathwish or some kind of bulletproof kung fu fighter. Literally nobody will respond to a distress call after midnight, that's assuming that someone called 911 upon seeing a dead body.

I have been there... Not the safest place and a real embarrassment regarding fiscal responsibility and corruption. Keep voting in crooks who have their own selfish interests in mind and you get what you deserve...

There seems to be a controversy going on here. I haven't been to Detroit, so I'm not the most authoritative voice to speak on this matter. We certainly need more people from Detroit, or at least have been to Detroit to chime in.

Personally, I like Detroit for its historical heritage for being our motor city. It was once the US's locomotive of economic growth. It deserves better than being the Baghdad of United States.

So many people attribute Detroit's downfall to the decline of the auto industry. While there's an element of truth there, it is far from the whole truth.

It was the 1943 (white on black) Race Riot that began white flight from Detroit. White flight was aided by the federal government's policy of cheap fixed rate mortgages for white vets post WW II making home ownership now readily affordable while black vets were denied those mortgages. $25 billion spent by the feds on a freeway system that gutted city neighborhoods to take white workers out of the city exacerbated the exodus. The money and jobs followed whites across 8 Mile Road during the next half century.

The matter was made worse In 1967, when racial tensions engulfed Detroit, and riots broke out. White people living in racially diverse communities began to sell or walk away from their homes. As white people left their neighborhoods, minorities moved in. Detroit’s neighborhoods and their demographics changed drastically and quickly after the 1967 riots. White residents fled by the thousands, affecting municipal infrastructures, tax bases and jobs. It set the stage for similar urban race-related exoduses around the country.

Detroit’s public schools are the worst in the nation. Most black students who manage to graduate from high school cannot read and compute any better than whites four years younger and still in junior high school.

In 2014, the matter has not improved by much. Now, a city with 89 percent Black population, it has collapsed in a sea of financial mismanagement, crime, drugs, broken schools, eroding infrastructure, and hopelessness.

The plight in Detroit is a vicious cycle. There's no reason for hope. Those naysayers who are blind to Detroit's problem are just trying to lure you in, then rob you of your wealth.

Johnny Appleseed
So, Still blaming whitey..... I think you may need to look at the real issue, mismanagement of money, affects of people like conyers sitting on her high and mighty. blaming white people will get you no where.

Detroit is really a frigging hell hole. When I say that I mean the down town area. The surrounding suburbs occupied mostly by white people are in fact pretty nice, but that downtown? It's like a Resident Evil down there.

It's really no exaggeration. I lived in Detroit suburb. I rarely drove to downtown, and when I did, I'd grab my shotgun with me.

You can't really blame the police. Blame the budget cut. They're underhanded. But anyway, the common practice of Detroit crime investigation is, if a call sounds urgent, like a case of arson or murder, the police would intentionally wait until an hour later before doing anything since it's much easier to just clean up bodies than risk armed confrontation. So It's not like they have their hands full with cases. They just prefer to avoid conflicts.

This once glorious Auto City was a metropolis of 1.8 million people, having the highest per capita income in the United States. Now, as the glory of American auto industry fades, manufacturing jobs are lost. What added insult to injury was the white flight in the 1960s, during which the wealthy middle class white people who had bought land surronding the city of Detroit left the city en masse with the intention to trap the black people in the city center. They succeeded. Detroit's black population is sitting at 84.3, a U.S. high. Urban decay has eaten this city alive, making it a third world city in the first world . This city has fallen so flat that it is not only broke, it is even uninhabitable by anyone but drug addicts and outlaws.

Just how dead is it, you may ask? Well, about one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict. An astounding 47 percent of the residents of the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate. 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, but over the past 60 years the population of Detroit has fallen by 63 percent. 40 percent of the street lights do not work. Only about a third of the ambulances are running. Two-thirds of the parks in the city of Detroit have been permanently closed down since 2008.

The size of the police force in Detroit has been cut by about 40 percent over the past decade. When you call the police in Detroit, it takes them an average of 58 minutes to respond. Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day. Today, police solve less than 10 percent of the crimes that are committed in Detroit.

The violent crime rate in Detroit is five times higher than the national average. The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City. Crime has gotten so bad in Detroit that even the police are telling people to "enter Detroit at your own risk".